Soldier and family wellness across the life course: A developmental model of successful aging, spirituality, and health promotion, Part II

Abstract

As an alternative to the current Department of Defense approach to health promotion and related research, which is critiqued in Part I of this article, the authors present a new, integrative health promotion and wellness model. This age-graded model incorporates successful aging, targeted health promotion, and spirituality in the context of the developmental perspective provided by life course constructs. By using an age-graded, multidisciplinary system of assessment, intervention, and follow-up in the context of preparing military personnel and families for the next season of life, this model advocates the prevention of disease and disability, active engagement with life, the maximization of high cognitive and physical functioning, and positive spirituality. Preliminary, selected illustrations from a variation of this model at the U.S. Army War College are provided. Progressive extrapolation of the model to other military leadership schools is proposed as a more efficacious health promotion strategy for the Department of Defense.